Experts Please Enlighten Me Regarding Bridge Mode

Friends,

Since last several years I have been using Airtel broadband modem-router as the main device and 3 other routers which connect to it via 3 LAN ports. This is done to provide good coverage across the two floors of my house ensuring there are no dead spots of Wi-Fi.

My setup is simple, I just disable DHCP on these 3 routers and connect them to my main Airtel modem/router and my setup works super fine providing great speed across the 2 floors of my house. Only the Airtel modem-router is responsible for DHCP.

Today while configuring the new modem-router by Airtel, I landed on this forum and found that everyone wants to configure their Airtel provided Nokia modem in bridge mode and then connect it to a router.

My question is, Why is everyone wanting to configure their Nokia modem in bridge mode? Am I missing something?

Please don't say "if you don't know it , you don't need it". I want to understand this for my learning. May be all through these years, I have been doing something wrong or may be there is much more optimized way of connecting routers to the main one which I am missing. (and yes before writing this query I have Googled quite a lot on this subject but couldn't find a proper answer, other than the definitions of bridge mode vs router mode)

Please enlighten me.

It’s not about bridge mode vs router mode.

Normally if you use Nokia device, it will be configured to get public ip on itself and will do the routing tasks all by itself in your home network If you are aware of term routing.

By configuring Nokia modem in bridge mode, user can initiate a pppoe connection from his own personal router and get the public ip on his personal router. This way all the routing will be done by personal router and Airtel device is just used as a termination to outside world. This can have many advantages for power users, some are

1) port forwarding is easy, the personal router has direct access to the public ip
2) personal router would be more powerful than Nokia and would be able to handle nat and routing more efficienctly.
3) VPN’s are more easy to setup if someone is using it.

In short it’s a big advantage if your own device has the public ip instead of airtel device (of which you have less or no control). If you don’t configure Nokia device lan port in bridge mode, you cannot ask your own router to connect using pppoe and get public ip.

This is not that suddenly everyone is wanting to use bridge mode in Nokia modem. Historically Airtel has provided adsl or fibre ont devices which did not have any WiFi inbuilt. So users used a WiFi router or purchase their own routers and configuration was done using pppoe, personal router always had the public ip in those cases. But recently (not sure since when) Airtel has come up with ont and WiFi devices (like all in one) like Nokia which has the capability of having the public IP and also fiber modem. This enables Airtel to have all the control but users are deprived off the flexibility. But it’s true normal users won’t be requiring bridge mode and can rely on Airtel device.

Ok, I got this done without a sweat. Called Airtel, Told them to register a support request to configure Bridge Mode. Had to call them couple of time, but eventually someone showed up on my door. He then gave me the username and password (Password is the account number, which can be picked up from Airtel App).

He said it will be done in two hours and told me to use the LAN port 4. It was provisioned in the backend.

Now my set up is as below.

Cisco RV340 Router - WAN 1 as Airtel - Connected Physically to LAN4 of Airtel's Nokia 2425G ONT.
Configured PPPoE with username and password given by Airtel
Service name as Airtel
Link Comes up with Public IP on Cisco's WAN interface.

All done in two hours.

Just to Re-Confirm - DHCP control lies with Cisco.

For me it's the opposite. Bridge enabled on LAN port 1,2,3 and Port 4 remain in route 😶

caprismart said:

Ok, I got this done without a sweat. Called Airtel, Told them to register a support request to configure Bridge Mode. Had to call them couple of time, but eventually someone showed up on my door. He then gave me the username and password (Password is the account number, which can be picked up from Airtel App).

He said it will be done in two hours and told me to use the LAN port 4. It was provisioned in the backend.

Now my set up is as below.

Cisco RV340 Router - WAN 1 as Airtel - Connected Physically to LAN4 of Airtel's Nokia 2425G ONT.
Configured PPPoE with username and password given by Airtel
Service name as Airtel
Link Comes up with Public IP on Cisco's WAN interface.

All done in two hours.

Just to Re-Confirm - DHCP control lies with Cisco.

Click to expand...

I have the same exact routers on my end, did the same exact configuration.
Cisco RV340 Router - WAN 1 as Airtel - Connected Physically to LAN4 of Airtel's Nokia 2425G ONT.

I enabled the bridge mode on LAN4 of Airtel's Nokia 2425G by logging into the router, But the Ethernet on LAN4 is down and WAN1 on RV340 is also down

is there something that i am missing ?